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Two Thoughts
by Bob Heath "…I will come and heal him."—Jesus (Matthew 8:7)
These are the words of Jesus to the Centurion. Words that many of us have heard preached so often that they are effectively meaningless. However, when you take a moment and attempt to picture the situation, these words are such a powerful picture of at least two very powerful concepts. I f we were to take Matthew chapter 8 as a story that happened in chronological order, you know Jesus’ disciples little heads had to be just swimming. Jesus had just finished confronting their pharisaical attitudes by healing a filthy leaper. A man known to them only as, “The Leper”. This was a man that they and society saw as the dregs of humanity. I can just see them standing there in shock that Jesus would risk his own life (and theirs) by touching that disgusting, filthy leper! Can you imagine what they were thinking when the enemy, “A Roman Centurion” approached Him?
Can’t you see them standing there as he approached Jesus? Talking amongst themselves: “I wonder what this loser wants”? Peter may have said “Get ready boys we may have to fight for Him”. Still another disciple says, “AHH, there is no way Jesus will talk to that guy”. I think if we read this as a chronological writing this isn’t Jesus just healing people, but He is intentionally confronting the Pharisaical religious and just generally pompous attitudes in His disciples.
In the body of Christ today there is far too much assumption that we know God and know how He works. We look across denominational lines and judge what the other guy thinks. We criticize the store manager as being a poor manager because we might have to stand in line for a minute or two. We look at the minister and judge him because of some perceived flaw we think we see in his life. We choose for just a moment to forget for the moment that we scream at our children on a regular basis. (Sometimes even publicly.) Pardon me bro or sis, but maybe we need to take the log out of our own eye before we look at others in judgment and don’t even get me started on how we treat the sick, the lame or the poor. (Pardon me “financially challenged”.) I promise you Jesus loves everyone (including you) in spite of our flaws, and our Pharisaism.
I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that He healed these people as much as a lesson to His boys (AND US!) as he did to heal the people themselves.
The other concept I wanted to point out, (Which quite honestly was the one I started out to write about.) is the absolute confidence that Jesus had in His ability to change a situation or “Heal it”. When the Centurion said, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented." Jesus didn’t question for a second if he could heal the man. His response was “Come on man let’s go, I WILL HEAL HIM” He knew who He was and there was no question that He could heal the servant. Folks, Jesus knew the fullness of the spirit of God was living in Him. He was a man full of God. This is a picture of what He died to make possible for us: That we can be men (and women) full of God!
Any situation we face, we need to put aside the perceived inadequacies of or lives and those around us and act as Jesus acted. We need to move in love and compassion and touch the situations we come across and change them. We need to realize that we ARE men and women full of God and dispel darkness where ever we see it. Since we are full of God like His word says we are, then we bury religious bias, flow in forgiveness and simply love people. Jesus does. If we do, we can win the world for Him. Let’s do it, let’s be men and women of action and love people with His power...His Love. |
